analogy

gigaom.com

MailChimp Chief Data Scientist John Foreman likes to talk about orange juice. On the surface, it’s a strange way to start a discussion about data, but it all starts to make sense when you peel back the rind. It’s a way of thinking that’s letting MailChimp — which sends about 35...

www.engadget.com

It's not another alternative for individual authors looking to self-publish (at least for now), but professional publishers looking to create and distribute interactive e-books now have a new option to consider in the form of Inkling Habitat. Initially available to select publishers in an early adopter program (a broader...

gigaom.com

SpiderOak says its new Nimbus.io cloud storage service, will offer consumers and businesses a cheaper way to archive their data. Yes, cheaper than Amazon. When it comes to storing cold data — the stuff that companies offloaded to tape — the need for speed is not paramount. Businesses just have...

www.businessinsider.com

Here's a weird one from Chris Taylor at Reuters. He says Americans are spending way too much money on iPhones, iPods, iPads, and everything else Apple makes. Taylor calls it an "Apple Tax," saying that people are burning their hard earned cash on devices and accessories they don't need: The...

gigaom.com

When thinking about the value of the data a company collects vs. the traditional value of the product it may produce, collecting and analyzing broad categories of customer + product data is becoming equally — if not more — valuable than the product itself. And, if the data is becoming...

techcrunch.com

SAP is having a blogger and analyst event this week that is an education in how a big company can be one day exciting and another gives a reminder of how different they are compared to the startups of the world. That was pretty well summed up today when SAP’s...

arstechnica.com

Those of you who know my writing will know that I don't use many analogies.Analogies have a very useful place in helping people understand difficult concepts, but they also have a tendency to be a end up strained beyond their limits. Now, imagine how I would react to a...

kottke.org

Writing for the New Yorker, Ken Auletta surveys the ebook landscape: it's Apple, Amazon, Google, and the book publishers engaged in a poker game for the hearts, minds, and wallets of book buyers. Kindle editions of books are selling well: There are now an estimated three million Kindles in use,...

www.readwriteweb.com

Cisco is betting heavily on the network as the platform. We took a look at the role of the network in the emerging landscape of cloud computing as part one of analysis of "Will One Company be Dominant in Cloud Computing". We started with Cisco, since the cloud implies the...

thefuturebuzz.com

Shared by Jesse Stay Singer's been rather critical lately. I'm not sure I see the benefit of this post, but he's a reputable source. Singer's a great DJ. The early adopters tend to overvalue what’s new. That’s fine and nothing out of the norm, it’s just what they do. But...

allthingsd.com

Got a mobile broadband device that you only really use a few times a month? Me too. If you’re sick of two-year contracts and monthly fees that go mostly to a gadget that sits idle in your bag until you’re out of range, there are a couple of different alternative...

www.techdirt.com

Game publishers and console manufacturers have been feeling some intensified heat from customers about "always on" requirements. (SimCity, anyone?) Microsoft has been battling rumours that the new Xbox will need an internet connection to function, an issue greatly magnified by some unfortunate tweets by its (former) Creative Director. Ubisoft...

www.maximumpc.com

Using just a small fraction of Google's vast application offerings? That's about to end! Remember that old maxim that says we use only about 10 percent of our brain’s capacity? It’s been proven as hokum by modern neuroscience, but we think we can safely apply the same basic analogy to...

www.businessinsider.com

Microsoft's Windows boss Steven Sinofsky took a shot at Apple's new iPad mini. Ina Fried reports Sinofsky was bragging about Windows 8 laptops that only cost $279, but are fully functional laptops. He compared to the iPad mini saying, "Here we are talking about 7-inch recreational tablets for $329." In...

www.betabeat.com

Mr. Horowitz Earlier this week, 10gen, the promising AlleyCorp startup launched by DoubleClick cofounder Dwight Merriman, announced a new partnership with an eye toward helping developers who work with big data and cloud technologies. The boost in market share probably doesn't hurt either. 10gen both develops and sponsors the open...

www.techdirt.com

Just as with our discussions on the efficacy of rain dances, I am most fascinated by stories of the baffling choices of copyright maximalists which, albeit unintentionally, most definitely promote content piracy/theft [insert Chris Dodd's buzzword of the week]. With that in mind, my favorites list will consist of stories...

www.techdirt.com

Apple has certainly been quite the aggressor over the last few years when it comes to patents, so it's interesting to hear that, at the latest All Things D Conference, CEO Tim Cook appears to have a bit of a double standard. You see, when others infringe upon Apple's patents,...

thenextweb.com

Despite the plethora of plus-points stemming from the dawn of the digital music era, it’s difficult not to hanker for the halcyon days of yore, when mix-tapes ruled the roost. I’m sure mix-tapes can’t have been as good as I remember them, but I know many people with a similar...

gigaom.com

It’s 2013, and yet two big questions still dominate the discussion any time a sufficiently large number of cloud computing types gather in the same room: How many players can the market support, and are cloud resources a commodity? The topic arose at the clouderati-filled Cloud 2020 meetup in Las...

thenextweb.com

The password management service My1Login offers a smart way to remember all of those passwords and key phrases by literally boiling them all down to one. Now it is also offering a Web page where visitors can find out why they might need a password manager and measure the strength...

arstechnica.com

The drought and heat wave of 2011, an example of an extreme event. NOAA When you see a lot of sixes coming up on a friend’s Monopoly dice, you might begin to harbor a suspicion that the dice are loaded. But if you see sevens appear, you know something...

Comments on 'Warm extremes in Earth's climate becoming more common':

blog.programmableweb.com

“In any organization you can be a Dilbert or a Wally,” according to Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. “Dilbert hasn’t given up yet, but Wally has.” The analogy was appropriate for the developer-heavy crowd at last week’s Open APIs for Government event. The setting–San Francisco City Hall–was also appropriate, because Newmark...

gigaom.com

In some ways, Hadoop is a like a fine wine: It gets better with age as rough edges (or flavor profiles) are smoothed out, and those who wait to consume it will probably have a better experience. The only problem with this is that Hadoop exists in a world that’s...

Comments on '5 reasons why the future of Hadoop is real-time (relatively speaking)':

www.businessinsider.com

Today Facebook revealed its first-ever TV spot, produced by advertising agency Wieden & Kennedy. The gist: Facebook is like a chair. "Chairs are for people. And that is why chairs are like Facebook," the ad explains. Zuckerberg gave an additional explanation, after announcing Facebook had reached 1 billion active users:...

www.guardian.co.uk

Hackers like McKinnon should be recruited, not prosecuted, if the US wants to dominate cyber warfare, one expert saysA US government adviser on cyber warfare has criticised the efforts to extradite the computer hacker Gary McKinnon from Britain, saying such people should be embraced rather than prosecuted.John Arquilla, a professor...

paidcontent.org

Image-sharing site Pinterest has been in negotiations for months with photo service Getty. A breakthrough could dispel some of the copyright questions hanging over the hot startup — but one expert says not to hold your breath. According to Bill Rosenblatt, an engineer and authority on digital rights issues, the...

www.engadget.com

"If you're in this room, you're the best of the best," Chris Anderson addressed the audience with his customary flair for the dramatic. Complimentary, sure, but not without merit -- the former Wired editor-in-chief was speaking to a classroom full of UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) developers, a number of...

www.theverge.com

On the heels of another wonderful Bastille Day weekend, this Monday came in like a lion. A lion with a Computer Science degree from Stanford, who's now the CEO of Yahoo. So maybe this analogy doesn't quite hold up, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a newsworthy day. It...

www.techdirt.com

Here are two words that have no business hanging out together: "used MP3s." If you know anything about how computers work, that concept is intellectually offensive. Same goes for "ebook lending", "digital rental" and a host of other terms that have emerged from the content industries' desperate scramble to...

gigaom.com

There are rumors flying around about the possible existence of a Nokia-made Windows 8 tablet. Based on what Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said Monday, though, it looks like a release for such a device is way off. In a roundtable Q&A at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, Elop said...